Response to Leavitt letter in the Mountain Mail

I submitted this before todays noon deadline for political letters, in response to Mr Leavitt’s letter in today’s paper.

In a letter to the editor, published 11/2/2017, Dick Leavitt was allowed a response to a political cartoon. In that response, Mr. Leavitt claimed that he is not a “one issue candidate”. That may be true, but it is hard to tell where he stands on the issues when he has been noticeably absent at many of the forums.

He did not appear at the League of Women’s Voters “candid-dating” forum, where his seat at the table was given to the two school board candidates who were in attendance. He was absent at the Housing Advisory Forum, held at city hall on 10/25/2017, to discuss his ideas about housing (the mayor and councilperson Hallett also failed to appear at this forum).

The Mountain Mail recently sent a series of question to the candidates, and their responses have been appearing in the paper. The mail reported that Mr. Leavitt “did not respond”, then, suddenly, he was granted a page to display his tardy responses.

In his letter, Mr. Leavitt called it “cowardly” that the cartoon depicting him, and his young opponent, was unsigned. The cartoon, however, DID display the artists signature (bottom right corner) and it was the Mountain Mail who failed to properly caption it.

He may disagree with the characterization depicted, but that does not give him the right to call names and demean character. This is a tactic we have seen far to much of from the mayor and the current council majority. Demean, deny, blame, all in the name of truth and justice.